There's a mouse in this gun

people carved trenches 3,000 years ago and filled them with chalk in the shape of a horse but what’s interesting is that if you fail to maintain the horse by adding new chalk regularly, it will disappear. for 3,000 years, we’ve been filling in chalk in this horse so it doesn’t disappear.

we’ll never know what the purpose of the horse was originally. we’ll never know if it had ritual or spiritual significance or if it was just art. but we do know that people maintained it then, and, even though the meaning of the horse has long been lost to time, we continue to maintain it now.

the people who made this horse are long dead, but they live through us still, don’t you think?

It’s worth adding that it’s pretty unique in being an (extant) chalk hill figure with bronze age origins. We’ve got a few chalk hill figures in England and some look clearly modern, like the white horse in Wiltshire, and some look old but only this one is REALLY REALLY old.

The other most famous hill figure that LOOKS ancient is the Cerne Abbas Giant (the lad with a wobbly club and a stiffie) down the road in Dorset. But despite its naive style that one might only be 17th century (no writings reference it before then) and is pretty certainly no more than 1000 years old. I mean that’s pretty old but it only serves to emphasise how much older the horse is. Three times as old as a really old thing.

You need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become? 🌿🌿🌿